Method of modelling a subterranean region of the earth

ABSTRACT

A method of modelling a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location comprises the steps of: providing geological data; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a distribution of rock physics probability with spatial dependencies; approximating the rock physics probability at the first location with at least one distribution per facies utilizing the spatial dependencies in the rock physics probability distribution; and performing a Bayesian inversion at the first location using the approximation of the rock physics probability distribution. The method may also employ a window comprising the first location and at least one further location.

This application is a Continuation of co-pending application Ser. No. 13/061,803 filed on Mar. 28, 2011 and for which priority is claimed under 35 U.S.C. §120, which is a National Stage of PCT/EP2009/061420 filed on Sep. 3, 2009, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(a) on Patent Application No. 0816041.8 filed in Great Britain Patent and Trademark Office on Sep. 3, 2008, all of which are hereby expressly incorporated by reference into the present application.

The present invention relates to a method of modelling a subterranean region of the Earth. For example, the method may be used to model and predict the probability of a type of lithology and pore fluid combination present at a location during exploration of a region below a surface of the Earth.

There are various known techniques for identifying lithology and fluids. Early methods for direct hydrocarbon identification (DHI) and lithology and fluid prediction (LFP) were qualitative in the form of different seismic attributes. These attributes were constructed to visually highlight specific rock properties and lithology and fluid types. An important class of methods is amplitude versus offset (AVO) methods. AVO is directly related to the reflection coefficient at the boundary between rocks of different types and properties or different pore fluids.

Seismic inversion is here defined as a quantitative transform of the seismic amplitudes to the elastic properties of the subsurface. The elastic properties, for example bulk and shear modulus and density, or VP, VS and density, can be regarded as layer properties.

We here define a facies to be a layer of a single composition with specified elastic properties. Facies may comprise rock or porous rock or a porous rock containing fluid. For example a facies may be shale, oil filled sandstone or brine filled sandstone. The elastic properties for a facies can be obtained from well logs or rock models. A facies will typically have varying elastic properties due to natural variation and uncertainty. The varying elastic properties may be represented by samples (from well log measurements or rock model simulations) or by probability density functions (PDF).

In standard facies identification, mapping rules from elastic properties to facies classes are established and applied to the inversion results. The simplest methods define classification rules. More advanced schemes calculate facies probabilities based on rock property PDFs. Usually, the uncertainty of the seismic inversion is not computed and included in the analysis.

The standard mapping from an inversion result to facies probabilities (or fades classification) is local or point-wise. For example, the inversion result in a specific location (cell or sample) is mapped to facies without considering the surrounding locations. The known local mapping methods are suboptimal with respect to facies prediction. A possible disadvantage is that location-wise or point-wise methods may give high probability for brine (high density) above gas (low density) since there are no spatial relationships involved in the mapping.

The seismic time-angle gather at a specific lateral location, denoted d, is assumed to be the response of an elastic vertical profile with elastic properties m. For isotropic materials, the relevant seismic properties are two elastic parameters and density, for example the P-wave velocity, the S-wave velocity, and the density. Hereafter we will denote these three parameters as elastic parameters. The elastic parameters define the seismic reflection coefficients and the amplitudes of the seismic data depending on the reflection angle. In an isotropic medium, the number of elastic parameters is 3, such that the vector in of elastic parameters has dimension 3L with L being the number of discrete time samples in a vertical profile. A regular sampling corresponding to the sampling of the seismic data is a natural choice, but this is not required. The vertical earth profile is also characterized by a vector of categorical facies classes f, usually defined as lithology-fluid classes. Inferences may be made about facies profile f based on the seismic data d. In Bayesian inversion, all inferences are completely based on the posterior distribution. The posterior distribution for the facies vector f given the seismic gather d is given by the standard Bayesian updating rule as

$\begin{matrix} {{{p\left( {fd} \right)} = \frac{{p\left( {df} \right)}{p(f)}}{p(d)}},} & (1) \end{matrix}$

where the relation between facies and seismic data is given by their link to the elastic parameter m. In the problem of facies prediction from seismic, the elastic parameter is a nuisance parameter which should be marginalized. The marginalization corresponds to integrating out the effect of the elastic parameter. The posterior distribution for facies vector f given the seismic gather d can then be written

p(f|d)=∫ . . . ∫p(f|m)p(m|d)dm,  (2)

where p(f|m) can be regarded as the posterior distribution of the rock physics inversion, and p(m|d) is the posterior distribution for the seismic inversion, the integral is of dimension 3L. The posterior distribution of the rock physics inversion from elastic parameters to facies is defined by Bayes' law as

p(f|m)∝p(m|f)p(f),  (3)

with p(m|f) being the rock physics likelihood function and p(f) the facies prior model. Similarly, the posterior distribution for the seismic inversion of seismic data to elastic parameters is defined by

p(m|d)∝p(d|m)p(m),  (4)

where p(d|m) is the seismic likelihood function and p(m) is the prior model for the elastic parameters.

The rock physics relations are generally non-linear and assumed local in the sense that the rock parameters in one location only affect the elastic properties in that specific location, such that

p(m _(i) |f)=p(m _(i) |f _(i)),  (5)

where the subscript i indicates that one specific location number i is considered, and p(m_(i)|f_(i)) is the rock physics likelihood function. The rock physics likelihood can be estimated from well log samples or alternatively from samples simulated with a stochastic rock model. Rock physics models define the link from rock properties to effective elastic properties for each facies (Avseth et al., 2005). Typical rock properties are mineral composition, fluid saturation, porosity, and texture characteristics. A stochastic rock model can be used to simulate the probability distribution of the elastic properties according to specified probability distribution for the rock properties r_(i):

p(m _(i) |f _(i))=∫ . . . ∫p(m _(i) |r _(i) ,f _(i))p(r _(i) |f _(i))dr _(i).  (6)

The seismic likelihood model is based on the seismic forward model defined in Buland and Omre (2003). A seismic time-angle gather can be written in the linear form,

d=Gm+e,  (7)

where the elastic properties m will typically be represented by the logarithm of the P-wave velocity, S-wave velocities and the densities along the vertical profile, G is a modelling matrix, and e is an additive coloured Gaussian noise term. The modelling matrix can for example be defined by

G=WAD,  (8)

where W is a block-diagonal matrix representing one wavelet for each angle, A is the matrix of angle dependent weak contrast coefficients defined by Aki and Richards (1980), and D is a differential matrix giving the contrasts of the elastic properties (logarithm of velocities and density), see Buland and Omre (2003) for more details. This defines the coloured Gaussian seismic likelihood function p(d|m).

Buland and Omre (2003) defined an efficient Bayesian linearized AVO inversion, assuming a Gaussian prior model for m. Combined with the likelihood model defined above, this gives explicit expressions for the posterior expectation and covariance.

The prior distribution of the elastic parameters can be modelled in a two-step approach. First the spatial distribution of fades is modelled. Next the distribution of elastic parameters is modelled given the fades. The fades distribution p(f) is defined on the space of all possible fades configurations in a vertical profile of L locations having a total of N_(f) ^(L) possible outcomes, where N_(f) is the number of facies classes. The distribution p(f) is commonly defined by a Markov model or an object model.

The distribution of elastic parameters for a given facies configuration, p(m|f), is not fully specified by the point-wise rock physics likelihood (6). In addition to this, a dependency structure of the elastic parameters within and between fades is needed. This can for example be modelled by conditional quantile mappings of Gaussian random fields; see for example Kolbjørnsen and Abrahamsen (2004). The prior distributions for the elastic parameters, p(m), will typically be multimodal with modes related to the different facies configurations, and is given by the expression

$\begin{matrix} {{{p(m)} = {\sum\limits_{f}{{p\left( {mf} \right)}{p(f)}}}},} & (9) \end{matrix}$

where the sum runs over all possible N_(f) ^(L) modes.

If only one location is considered, then it follows from expressions (5) and (9) that

$\begin{matrix} {{{p\left( m_{i} \right)} = {\sum\limits_{f_{i} = 1}^{N_{f}}{{p\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}{p\left( f_{i} \right)}}}},} & (10) \end{matrix}$

where N_(f) is the number of facies classes. This prior distribution will typically be multi-modal with peaks related to the different facies. Thus, p(m_(i)) is not Gaussian. The multi-modal prior model p(m_(i)) is not mathematically convenient as a prior model used in seismic inversion. If we approximate the prior model of m_(i) with a Gaussian prior model p.(m_(i)) and use the seismic likelihood model defined above, we can use the fast seismic inversion method defined in Buland and Omre (2003), giving p.(m_(i)|d).

A point-wise approximation of the posterior facies probability can now be defined as

p(f _(i) |d)∝p(d|f _(i))p(f _(i)),  (11)

where the proportionality constant is defined by the normalization

$\begin{matrix} {{{\sum\limits_{f = 1}^{N}{p\left( {f_{i}d} \right)}} = 1},} & (12) \end{matrix}$

and the approximate likelihood function is defined by the three dimensional integral

$\begin{matrix} {{p\left( {df_{i}} \right)} \propto {\int{\int{\int{\frac{{p\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}p*\left( {m_{i}d} \right)}{p*\left( m_{i} \right)}{{m_{i}}.}}}}}} & (13) \end{matrix}$

This summarizes the location-wise method described in Buland et al. (2008). The seismic inversion result in a specific location is mapped to facies without considering the surrounding locations. This is suboptimal with respect to facies prediction. One problem is that a location-wise method may give high probability for brine (high density) above gas (low density) since there are no spatial relationships involved in the mapping.

Aspects of the invention are set out in the accompanying claims.

The invention will be further described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a window comprising a plurality of locations, which may be used in an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a selection of possible combinations of facies, in a window comprising three locations, according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a graph showing examples of probability density functions for facies against acoustic impedance in grams per cubic centimeter multiplied by kilometers per second (g/ccm×km/s);

FIG. 4 illustrates a simulation showing a facies configuration and seismic data;

FIG. 5 illustrates a comparison of fades predictions using different prediction methods and parameters;

FIG. 6 illustrates the observed and predicted probabilities of different facies from simulations using an embodiment of the invention having a window comprising one location;

FIG. 7 illustrates the observed and predicted probabilities of different facies from simulations using an embodiment of the invention having a window comprising two locations;

FIG. 8 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of model parameters in units of logarithm of acoustic impedance using a local approach with one Gaussian distribution;

FIG. 9 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of model parameters using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for approximating the model parameters;

FIG. 10 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of model parameters using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for approximating the transitions from shale to all fades;

FIG. 11 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of model parameters using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for approximating the transitions from brine sand to all fades;

FIG. 12 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of model parameters using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for approximating the transitions from fizz sand and from oil sand;

FIG. 13 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of seismic data using the local approach with one Gaussian distribution;

FIG. 14 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of seismic data using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for approximating the seismic data;

FIG. 15 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of seismic data using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for transitions from shale to all facies;

FIG. 16 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of seismic data using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for transitions from brine to all facies;

FIG. 17 illustrates the vertical mean and standard deviation of seismic data using an embodiment of the invention with four Gaussian distributions for transitions from fizz sand and oil sand;

FIG. 18 a is a graph showing the distribution of the elastic parameter (solid line) and the Gaussian approximation (dashed line);

FIG. 18 b illustrates the ratio p(m_(i)|f_(i)) p.(m_(i)) for shale, brine sand, fizz sand, and oil sand (top to bottom) against the logarithm of acoustic impedance;

FIG. 19 a is a graph showing the distribution of elastic parameters (solid lines) and the Gaussian approximations (dashed lines) for shale, brine sand, fizz sand, and oil sand;

FIG. 19 b shows the ratio p(m_(i)|f_(i))/p.(m_(i)|f_(i)) for shale, brine sand, fizz sand, and oil sand (top to bottom) against the logarithm of acoustic impedance;

FIG. 20 illustrates the local adjustments for Gaussian distributions in the local approximation method for shale, brine sand, fizz sand, and oil sand (top to bottom) against the logarithm of acoustic impedance;

FIG. 21 illustrates the local adjustments for Gaussian distributions for shale, brine sand, fizz sand, and oil sand (top to bottom) according to an embodiment of the invention having a window comprising one locations against the logarithm of acoustic impedance; and

FIG. 22 illustrates the local adjustments for Gaussian distributions for shale, brine sand, fizz sand, and oil sand (top to bottom) according to an embodiment of the invention having a window comprising two locations against the logarithm of acoustic impedance.

According to one embodiment of the invention, when the fades probability in one location is computed, all facies combinations in the neighbourhood of this location are considered. For example, FIG. 1 shows a location i of interest, and a neighbourhood to this location defined by a window W_(i).

Generally, the locations in the window W_(i) may be any pre-selected set of locations close to i. In this neighbourhood, all fades combinations are considered. Let f_(w) denote the facies combinations in the neighbourhood. We here suppress the location index i to simplify the notation. All possible configurations of f_(w) are shown in FIG. 2 of the accompanying drawings, for the case with three locations in the window and three facies options being shale, brine sand, and hydrocarbon sand, giving 3³=27 combinations. Combinations with brine immediately above hydrocarbon are excluded since these are unphysical. This leaves 21 possible facies combinations f_(w) in this window.

Rather than investigate all N_(f) ^(L) combinations of facies in the vertical profile, we investigate only the N_(f) ^(w) facies combinations in the window, where L is the number of locations in the vertical profile and w is the number of locations in the window. The challenge is to approximate the likelihood p(d|f_(w)). This is done by first approximating the rock physics distribution given the local facies configuration p(m|f_(w)) and then marginalizing the elastic parameters.

The probability distribution of the elastic parameters p(m) can be written as a weighted sum over the facies combinations inside the window W_(i),

$\begin{matrix} {{{p(m)} = {\sum\limits_{f_{w}}{{p\left( {mf_{w}} \right)}{p\left( f_{w} \right)}}}},} & (14) \end{matrix}$

where f_(w) is the facies configurations in the window Iff_(i), p(f_(w)) is the probability function for these configurations, and p(m|f_(w)) is the probability distribution of elastic parameters given the facies configuration in the window. The sum in expression (14) is over much fewer facies configurations than the representation in expression (9), and is easily handled as long as the window size is small. The rock physics likelihood p(m|f_(w)) is approximated by a Gaussian distribution p.(m|f_(w)), although other distributions may be used. The approximation for the prior model for the elastic properties p(m) is thus a mixture of Gaussian distributions

$\begin{matrix} {{{p(m)} \approx {\sum\limits_{f_{w}}{p*\left( {mf_{w}} \right){p\left( f_{w} \right)}}}},} & (15) \end{matrix}$

The Gaussian distribution p.(m|f_(w)) which approximates the rock physics likelihood p(m|f_(w)) is completely defined by the expectation vector μ_(m|f) _(w) and covariance matrix Σ_(m|f) _(w) . Since the joint distribution of elastic parameters and fades configurations p(m,f) is known, these quantities can be computed as E{m|f_(w)} and Cov{m|f_(w)} from p(m,f).

The posterior probability for the facies configuration in the window is given as

p(f _(w) |d)∝p(d|f _(w))p(f _(w)).  (16)

Under the Gaussian approximation p.(m|f_(w)) of p(m|f_(w)), we can marginalize the elastic parameter using the method defined in Buland and Omre (2003) for each fades configuration f_(w). The resulting approximate likelihood function for the seismic data in the window, p.(d|f_(w)) is Gaussian with expectation vector and covariance matrix given as

μ_(d|f) _(w) =Gμ _(m|f) _(w) ,

Σ_(d|f) _(w) =G ^(T)Σ_(m|f) _(w) G+Σ _(e).  (17)

The approximate likelihood p.(d|f_(w)) can thus be found by standard methodology. The approximate posterior probability function p.(f_(w)|d) for the fades configuration in the window can be computed by substituting the likelihood in expression (16) with the approximate likelihood. The posterior distribution is defined by the known prior probability of p(f_(w)) and the Gaussian likelihood function p.(d|f_(w)) for the seismic data given the fades configuration in the window. This means that the approximate posterior distribution p.(f_(w)|d) can be obtained for all facies configurations f_(w) by normalizing over all fades combinations in f_(w). Under the Gaussian approximation, the posterior distribution of elastic parameter (i.e. m|d,f_(w)) is also Gaussian with mean and covariance given as

μ_(m|d,f) _(w) =μ_(m|f) _(w) +Σ_(m|f) _(w) GΣ _(d|f) _(w) ⁻¹(d−μ _(d|f) _(w) ),

Σ_(m|d,f) _(w) =Σ_(m|f) _(w) −Σ_(m|f) _(w) GΣ _(d|f) _(w) ⁻¹ G ^(T)Σ_(m|f) _(w) ,  (18)

If the rock physics likelihood function p(m|f) happens to be Gaussian, the Gaussian approximation in (15) reproduces this distribution inside the window. If the rock physics likelihood is not Gaussian, it may be possible to further improve on the Gaussian approximation by adjusting the approximate distribution of elastic parameters such that it reproduces the rock physics distribution in location i.

We account for the non-Gaussian rock physics distribution in location i, p(m_(i)|f_(i)), by correcting the Gaussian distribution in the location i where the inversion is performed. This results in the approximate distribution

$\begin{matrix} {{\overset{\sim}{p}(m)} = {\sum\limits_{f_{w}}{p*\left( {mf_{w}} \right)\frac{p\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}{{p\left( f_{w} \right)}.}}}} & (19) \end{matrix}$

This distribution has three desirable properties. First, it reproduces the distribution of the elastic parameters in location i. Second, it accounts for all facies configurations inside the window W_(i). Third, all second order interactions between elastic parameters are captured, meaning that the expectation and covariance of the elastic parameters computed with the distribution in expression (19) are the same as those computed with the distribution in expression (9). The prior distribution in expression (19) yields the likelihood

$\begin{matrix} {{{\overset{\sim}{p}\left( {df_{w}} \right)} = {p*\left( {df_{w}} \right){\int{\int{\int{\frac{{p\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}p*\left( {{m_{i}d},f_{w}} \right)}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}{m_{i}}}}}}}},} & (20) \end{matrix}$

where we have used that p(m_(i)|f_(w))=p(m_(i)|f_(i)) is the true distribution from the rock physics (see expression (6)), p.(m_(i)|f_(i)) and p.(m_(i)|d,f_(w)) are the conditional prior and posterior distributions of m_(i) under the Gaussian approximation, and p(d|f_(w)) is the likelihood computed under the Gaussian approximation.

Since p.(m_(i)|d,f_(w)) in Expression (20) is a Gaussian distribution, the data vector will only affect the mean value of this expression whereas the variance is determined by the data quality alone, i.e. p.(m_(i)|d,f_(w))=g ({circumflex over (μ)}_(i)(d,f_(w)){circumflex over (Σ)}(f_(w))), where {circumflex over (μ)}_(i), (d,f_(w)) and {circumflex over (Σ)}(f_(w)) are the conditional mean and variance of m_(i) under the Gaussian approximation for fades configuration f_(w). The conditional mean and variance of m_(i), are given in expression (18). The fact that the conditional variance is independent of data makes it possible to precompute the integral term in expression (20) and store it in a table. One table is computed for each facies configuration and has the dimension of the local elastic parameter m_(i). The table is computed as a convolution between the ratio p(m_(i)|f_(i))/p.(m_(i)|f_(i)), and a Gaussian distribution with a known variance {circumflex over (Σ)}(f_(w)):

$\begin{matrix} {{{L\left( {bf_{w}} \right)} = {\int{\int{\int{\frac{{p\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}{g\left( {b,{{\hat{\sum}}_{i}{,f_{w}}}} \right)}}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{i}} \right)}{m_{i}}}}}}},} & (21) \end{matrix}$

where L(b|f_(w)) denotes the precomputed table. The integral term in expression (20) is obtained by evaluating the precomputed table at the posterior mean for the elastic parameter given the facies configuration, i.e. L({circumflex over (μ)}_(i)(d,f_(w))|f_(w)).

An intuitive interpretation of the approximate likelihood in expression (20) is given in the following. The approximate likelihood contains a Gaussian likelihood term p.(d|f_(w)) and an integral term. The Gaussian term is identical to the contribution when a purely Gaussian distribution is assumed. The integral term corrects for the non-Gaussian distribution of the elastic parameters in location i, i.e. m_(i). It is the average of the ratio between the rock physics model p(m₁|f_(i)) and the Gaussian approximation p.(m_(i),|f_(i)). The average is taken over the posterior distribution of m_(i) conditioned to the facies configuration f_(w), under the Gaussian approximation, that is p.(m_(i)|d,f_(w)). When we use the Gaussian approximation for the true distribution of elastic parameters in one location, some values of m_(i) are assumed to be more probable than they actually are and some values are less probable. The rock physics likelihood ratio p(m_(i)|f_(i))/p.(m_(i)|f_(i)) expresses the error made in the approximation. If one considers a small region around m_(i), the ratio says how much more likely it is to have this value under the true model than under the approximation. A value of 1 indicates they are equally likely, a value larger than one indicates that the true model is more likely than the approximation, and a value less than one indicates that the true model is less likely than the approximation. If the factor is identically one the term gives no adjustment. The factor p.(m_(i)|d,f_(w)) is the posterior probability of the local elastic parameter for a given facies configuration in the window. This factor indicates how likely the value m_(i), is under the Gaussian approximation when also conditioned to seismic data. If this distribution is focused in a region where the likelihood ratio is high, this means that the Gaussian approximation underestimates the likelihood of this facies. This is corrected by the integral term in expression (20).

The method computes the posterior probabilities for facies configurations in the window around location i, and this is repeated for all windows. These probabilities are therefore computed at each location, so the results for all locations in the trace are obtained by investigating L·N_(f) ^(w) fades combinations. This compares favourably with the complexity of the full distribution, which is N_(f) ^(L). There is more information contained in the posterior distribution for all facies combinations in the complete trace than that contained in the collection of all posterior distributions for the fades configurations in all the local windows. The probability of oil sand in one location can be computed both from the posterior distribution of the local windows and from the posterior for the complete trace, but, for example, the probability that a trace contains oil in one or several locations can only be obtained from the posterior distribution for all facies combinations in the complete trace. It is, however, possible to approximate the posterior distribution for all fades combinations in the trace by using the collection of posterior distributions for facies configurations in the local windows using a Markov chain approach.

The proposed method differs from the location-wise methods even if the window size is one, i.e. w=1. When w=1, the approximation still matches the mean and covariance of the true conditional distribution of the elastic properties given facies in the location (m|f_(i)). The location-wise approach used in known methods assumes that the distribution of elastic parameters away from the inversion location i is conditionally independent of the facies in location i given the elastic parameter in location i. This is not true in general due to dependency in the facies. The local approach in Buland et al. (2008) is a special case of expression (20). where the Gaussian mixture in expression (15) reduces to a single Gaussian distribution. When no local facies information is used in the approximate distribution of the elastic parameters, the first term of expression (20), p.(d|f_(w)) reduces to a constant p.(d) and cancels out in the normalization.

The probability function of the facies configurations in the window p(f_(w)) is known through the probability function p(f) for the complete facies profile. The method for computing the probability function p(f_(w)) for the possible facies configurations in the window may vary depending on how p(f) is defined. One possibility is to sample from the distribution for the complete fades profile, p(f), and approximate the probability for facies configurations in the window, p(f_(w)), empirically. This can be done simply by counting the number of times each specific configuration occurs relative to the total number of samples.

The distribution of elastic parameters given local fades configuration p(m|f_(w)) can be found from (9) by summing over all fades combinations that are not restricted inside the window. To formalize this, divide the facies profile f into two parts f=[f_(−w),f_(w)] where f_(w) is the facies configurations in the locations inside the window (as earlier) and f_(−w) denotes the fades configurations of the locations outside the window. We then find

$\begin{matrix} {{{p\left( {mf_{w}} \right)} = {\sum\limits_{f_{- w}}{{p\left( {mf} \right)}{{p(f)}/{p\left( f_{w} \right)}}}}},} & (22) \end{matrix}$

where the sum is over all configurations outside the window, i.e. f_(−w). Expression (22) has almost as many summands as expression (9) and is hence not useful in practice. The exact method for computing these quantities will be case dependent, but as for p(f_(w)) these can be approximated by empirical relations by sampling from the joint distribution of elastic parameters and facies configurations p(m,f) and then estimating the mean and variances in the relevant sub samples. That is, the expectation and variance are computed for samples that all have the same facies configuration in the window W_(i). Replacing expression (9) with expression (15) simplifies the computations significantly. This allows us to approximate the posterior probability for the facies configuration in the window (see expression (16)) by considering only the facies configurations in the window rather than all fades configurations in the trace. The computational complexity and accuracy of the result can be balanced by adjusting the window size. A large window gives large accuracy but has large computational cost; a short window decreases the accuracy, but is also faster to compute. The construction in expression (15) allows us to avoid physically unlikely or impossible relations close to the location for inversion. This can be done by excluding unlikely or impossible facies combinations inside the window as shown in FIG. 2, and making the expectation and the variability correct for the elastic parameters conditioned to the fades combination in the window.

An example of use of the method is described hereinafter.

For a workflow, one can consider fades inversion in a region A. In this workflow we assume that the rock physics relations are stationary in the region A, we have n_(s) volumes of seismic data potentially being PP (compressional reflected waves) or PS (compressional waves converted to shear waves by reflection) data from different angles. The seismic data has undergone processing such that it can be regarded as the response from a local 1D earth model and has been transformed from offset to reflection angles. The data cubes cover a region which extends a length T/2 above and below the region A. This additional data is included to account for boundary effects and T is typically slightly larger than the wavelet length. The seismic data has equal sampling interval dt throughout this extended region. Thus an interval of length T contains L sample points, i.e. L=T/dt. The number of sample points L for an interval of length T is much larger than the number of locations within the window, i.e. w<<L.

Consider now one location i inside the region A. Let d_(i) denote a L·n_(s) vector consisting of seismic data from all seismic cubes in a region of length T/2 above and below the location i. As long as the location i is within the region A the distribution of d_(i) will not depend on the particular location that is selected. Let therefore d denote a stochastic variable that has the same distribution as d_(i).

Under the assumptions above, the workflow for computing the probability for the facies configuration conditioned to data {tilde over (p)}(f_(w)|d_(i)) according to the above technique for all locations in region A is then:

-   -   1) Compute the approximate Gaussian distribution of elastic         parameters given all facies configurations f_(w) in the window,         p.(m|f_(w)) from rock physics relations.     -   2) Compute the approximate distributions for seismic data given         all fades configurations f_(w) in the window, p.(d|f_(w)) by the         relation in expression (17).     -   3) Compute the conditional variance under the Gaussian         approximation, i.e. {circumflex over (Σ)}(f_(w)), by using the         relation in expression (18).     -   4) Compute the adjustment factor L(b|f_(w)) for distribution as         a lookup table by using the relation in expression (21).     -   5) For each location i in the region A         -   a. Extract seismic data d_(i)         -   b. For all fades configurations f_(w)             -   i. Evaluate a_(i)(f_(w))=p.(d_(i)|f_(w))             -   ii. Compute b_(i)(f_(w))={circumflex over                 (μ)}_(i)(d_(i),f_(w)) using the relation in expression                 (18).             -   iii. Look up c_(i)(f_(w))=L(b_(i)(f_(w))|f_(w))         -   c. Compute

${\overset{\sim}{p}\left( {f_{w}d_{i}} \right)} = \frac{{p\left( f_{w} \right)}{a_{i}\left( f_{w} \right)}{c_{i}\left( f_{w} \right)}}{\sum\limits_{f_{w}}{{p\left( f_{w} \right)}{a_{i}\left( f_{w} \right)}{c_{i}\left( f_{w} \right)}}}$

This workflow gives the probability for the local fades configuration around location i in the region A. Known local methods compute the point-wise probability for facies given seismic data p(f_(i)=k|d_(i)). This quantity can also be obtained in the present method by summing all configurations that have fades number k in the central location, i.e.:

${p\left( {f_{i} = {kd_{i}}} \right)} = {\sum\limits_{{f_{w}\text{:}f_{i}} = k}{\overset{\sim}{p}\left( {f_{w}d_{i}} \right)}}$

In a workflow that computes the point-wise probability for facies given seismic data, this last step of marginalization is naturally included as step 5.d in the workflow above.

As a synthetic test case, we consider a case with four facies being shale, brine sand, fizz sand and oil sand. Fizz sand is a low saturated hydrocarbon sand. The elastic parameter considered is acoustic impedance (AI). The distribution of acoustic impedance is a truncated Gaussian distribution. The truncation is however at a distance far from the mean such that it does not affect the probabilities much. The logarithm of acoustic impedance z=ln (AI) is the model parameter that is used for the inversion. This has a distribution that is given by the expression

$\begin{matrix} {{p(z)} = {\frac{\exp (z)}{\sqrt{2\pi}\sigma}{\exp\left( {- \frac{\left( {{\exp (z)} - \mu} \right)^{2}}{2\sigma^{2}}} \right)}}} & (23) \end{matrix}$

The parameters used for the four facies are shown in Table 1 below, along with the corresponding means and standard deviations. The distributions are shown in FIG. 3.

A synthetic trace of acoustic impedance is generated in a two-step approach. A background of shale is populated with vertically correlated acoustic impedance. In this background, sand bodies are distributed randomly throughout the trace. After the simulation of sand bodies, vertically connected sand bodies are assigned to fluids being either, brine, fizz, oil, brine-and-fizz, or brine-and-oil. In the cases with two fluids in a sand body, the fluid contact is assigned randomly within in the object. A vertically correlated random field is then simulated for each sand body and mapped to meet the expected value and the standard deviation of the facies per location. The synthetic seismic is generated using a Ricker wavelet with peak frequency of 25 Hz. The seismic signal is obtained from this by adding random noise. The signal to noise ratio, stated as the synthetic seismic energy to the energy in the error, is computed over the full trace. FIG. 4 shows details for one specific trace and displays the synthetic generated facies log, acoustic impedance, reflection coefficients Cpp and the corresponding seismic response. For the seismic response also an error term is added. In FIG. 4, panel A shows the initial facies configuration with shale 1, brine sand 2, fizz sand 3, and oil sand 4. Panel B shows the trace for acoustic impedance. Panel C shows the reflection coefficients for zero offset. Panel D shows the synthetic seismic energy for the reflection coefficients to the left, the error amplitudes in the middle, and the generated seismic energy on the right.

In the following, we compute a reference inversion by the local method described in Buland et al. (2008) and compare the results to the present technique with window sizes w=1 and w=2. We follow the workflow described above where we also include the marginalization. This is done in order to obtain quantities that can also be obtained with the local method.

FIG. 5 shows the results from applying the three methods to the dataset shown in FIG. 4. From this figure we can visually see that the present technique improves the facies prediction. Here brine sand 2 has a larger probability below fizz sand 3 and oil sand 4 than above. In order to quantify the improvement of the prediction thoroughly, we estimated the point-wise fades probabilities in a trace containing 10⁶ sample points. We further average the facies probabilities for each facies class. The results are summarized in Table 2 to 4 for the known local technique and the two examples of the present technique respectively. Each column sums up to one and the best method is the one with the most probability on the diagonal. Weighting the diagonal elements with the prior probability for that fades gives one single measure of the performance for each method. This measures the average probability of predicting correct facies. The reference for this measure is the prior probabilities. This gives an average prediction probability of 0.534. By using the local method for updating, the data increase this prediction to 0.615. By applying the present technique with window size w=1 this is further increased to 0.656. Increasing the window size to w=2 does not give any significant further improvement with an average prediction probability of 0.658. The largest improvement over the local method is 10% in the prediction of brine, but also the predictions for oil and fizz have increased by more than 5%.

The predicted facies probabilities are obtained based on approximations. It is therefore interesting to investigate the consistency of the prediction. One way of checking this is to investigate all locations that predict the same facies probability for a particular facies and to compute the fraction of these locations that actually have this facies. If the observed fraction is identical to the predicted fraction, the method is consistent. FIGS. 6 and 7 show a comparison between the predicted facies probabilities and observed fractions for window sizes w=1 and w=2, respectively. We see that by increasing the window size we improve consistency in the model.

TABLE 1 Prior mean and standard deviation E{Z} = μ Std{Z} = σ E{In(Z)} Std{In(Z)} Shale 7.3 0.25 1.99 0.034 Brine sand 7.1 0.20 1.96 0.028 Fizz sand 6.6 0.25 1.89 0.038 HC sand 6.5 0.25 1.87 0.039

TABLE 2 Average prediction probabilities using a local method. Shale Brine Fizz Oil Shale 0.787 0.149 0.035 0.028 Brine 0.705 0.158 0.070 0.067 Fizz 0.437 0.138 0.194 0.231 Oil 0.381 0.126 0.219 0.274

TABLE 3 Average prediction probabilities using the novel method, window size w = 1. Shale Brine Fizz Oil Shale 0.816 0.127 0.031 0.026 Brine 0.592 0.258 0.075 0.075 Fizz 0.347 0.156 0.231 0.267 Oil 0.270 0.146 0.258 0.326

TABLE 4 Average prediction probabilities using the novel method, window size w = 2. Shale Brine Fizz Oil Shale 0.820 0.123 0.031 0.026 Brine 0.606 0.247 0.074 0.073 Fizz 0.345 0.155 0.233 0.268 Oil 0.269 0.145 0.260 0.326

REFERENCES

-   Avseth, P., Mukerji, T., and Mavko, G., 2005, Quantitative Seismic     Interpretation: Cambridge University Press. -   Buland, A. and Omre, H., 2003: Bayesian linearized AVO inversion.     Geophysics, 68, 185-198. -   Larsen, A. L., Ulvmoen, M, Omre. H. and Buland, A., 2006, Bayesian     lithology/fluid prediction and simulation based on a Markov-chain     prior model: Geophysics, 71, R69-R78. -   Buland, A., Kolbjernsen, O., Hauge, R., Skjveland, Ø., and Duffaut,     K., 2008, Bayesian Lithology and Fluid prediction from seismic     prestack data: Geophysics, vol. 73, issue 3, C13-C21 -   Kolbjernsen, O. and Abrahamsen, P., 2004, Theory of the Cloud     Transform for Applications: In Leuangthong, O. and Clayton, V.,     Geostatistics Banff, Volume 1.

The following demonstrates how to obtain the approximation of likelihood p(d|f_(w)) that appears in equation (16). The approximation sought used the approximation p(m|f_(w))≈{tilde over (p)}(m|f_(w)) where {tilde over (p)}(m|f_(w)) is given in equation (19). By using standard rules of probability calculus, we derive the expression (20):

$\begin{matrix} {{\overset{\sim}{p}\left( {df_{w}} \right)} = {\int{\cdot \cdot {\int{{p\left( {{{m}},f_{w}} \right)}{\overset{\sim}{p}\left( {mf_{w}} \right)}{m}}}}}} \\ {= {\int{\cdot \cdot {\int{{p\left( {{{m}},f_{w}} \right)}p*\left( {mf_{w}} \right){m_{- i}}\frac{p\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{m_{i}}}}}}} \\ {= {\int{\int{\int{p*\left( {{,{m_{i}f_{w}}}} \right)\frac{p\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{m_{i}}}}}}} \\ {= {\int{\int{\int{p*\left( {{f_{w}}} \right)p*\left( {{m_{i}f_{w}},d} \right)\frac{p\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{m_{i}}}}}}} \\ {= {p*\left( {df_{w}} \right){\int{\int{\int{p*\left( {{m_{i}f_{w}},d} \right)\frac{p\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{p*\left( {m_{i}f_{w}} \right)}{m_{i}}}}}}}} \end{matrix}$

For the example above we generated a trace consisting of 10⁶ time samples. This trace was used to calibrate the rock physics model. Tables 5 and 6 yield p(f_(w)) for window sizes w=1 and w=2 respectively. These are easily computed from the generated trace. In Table 6 there is zero probability of the configuration brine above fizz, brine above oil, oil above fizz and fizz above oil. The first two indicate that hydrocarbons are always above brine, the latter two indicate that fizz and oil do not occur in the same reservoir. FIG. 8 shows the mean and standard deviation that is used for the approximate Gaussian distribution of the logarithm of acoustic impedance in the local method i.e. Buland et al. (2008). FIG. 9 shows the means and standard deviations for the four Gaussian distributions that are used for the logarithm of acoustic impedance in the case of an embodiment having a window size w=1. Each Gaussian distribution corresponds to one facies configuration in the window. For window size w=1, this means one distribution for each facies in the central location. In the sum in expression (15) the distributions displayed in FIG. 9 are the Gaussian distributions p.(m|f_(w)) which correspond to the probabilities p(f_(w)) in Table 2. FIGS. 10 to 12 show the means and standard deviations for the twelve Gaussian distributions that are used for the logarithm of acoustic impedance in the case of an embodiment having a window size w=2. For window size w=2, these correspond to the twelve facies transitions. The sum in expression (15) comprise the Gaussian distributions p.(m|f_(w)) shown in FIGS. 10 to 12 that correspond to the probabilities p(f_(w)) in Table 6. FIGS. 13 to 17 show the Gaussian distributions p.(d|f_(w)) that correspond to the distributions p.(m|f_(w)) in FIGS. 8 to 12. The local method illustrated in FIGS. 8 and 13 has a stationary mean and standard deviation. The Gaussian distributions that are used in the present technique have a distinct behaviour around the central location and approach a stationary behaviour when going away from the central location.

The adjustment for the non-Gaussian distribution is given by the integral in expression (21). FIG. 18 a shows a comparison between the distribution of the elastic parameter and the Gaussian approximation that is used in the local approach of Buland et. al. (2008). In FIG. 18 b the ratio p(m_(i)|f_(i))/p.(m_(i)) is shown on a logarithmic scale. In FIGS. 19 a and 19 b the corresponding plots are shown for the present technique. Since we only adjust for the distribution in one point, the ratio p(m_(i)|f_(i))/p.(m_(i)|f_(i)) is common for all window sizes, in particular for window sizes w=1 and w=2. The posterior covariance {circumflex over (Σ)}(f_(w)) is listed in Tables 7 to 9 for the local method and for embodiments of window sizes w=1 and w=2, respectively. By using the ratios and the posterior standard deviations, the adjustment for the non-Gaussian distribution given in expression (21) can be computed. This adjustment is displayed in FIGS. 20 to 22. The adjustment factor is much larger in the local method since this is the only contribution to the likelihood. When the window size is two in the present technique, there should be twelve different adjustment but, since there is so little difference in the posterior standard deviations for a given fades, it is impossible to distinguish between ratios that are caused by different smoothing factors.

TABLE 5 Facies probabilities. The table displays the observed fractions of facies. Shale Brine Fizz Oil 0.709 0.145 0.073 0.073

TABLE 6 Probability of facies configurations. The table displays the observed fraction of the facies configuration in two neighbouring cells. The left column denotes the lower facies. The top row denotes the upper facies. Shale Brine Fizz Oil Shale 0.666 0.035 0.004 0.004 Brine 0.007 0.110 0.014 0.014 Fizz 0.018 0 0.055 0 Oil 0.018 0 0 0.055

TABLE 7 Prior and posterior standard deviations for an elastic parameter local approach. Local Prior 0.051 Posterior 0.038

TABLE 8 Prior and posterior standard deviations for approximate distributions at the central location, for window size w = 1. Shale Brine Fizz Oil Prior 0.034 0.028 0.038 0.039 Posterior 0.032 0.025 0.032 0.033

TABLE 9 Prior and posterior standard deviations for approximate distributions at the central location, for window size w = 2. Shale-Shale Shale-Brine Shale-Fizz Shale-Oil Prior 0.034 0.034 0.034 0.034 Posterior 0.031 0.029 0.031 0.031 Brine-Shale Brine-Brine Brine-Fizz Brine-Oil Prior 0.028 0.028 0.028 0.028 Posterior 0.025 0.025 0.024 0.024 Fizz-Shale Fizz-Fizz Oil-Shale Oil-Oil Prior 0.038 0.038 0.039 0.039 Posterior 0.032 0.031 0.032 0.032

Various modifications may be made.

The invention may be put into practice by variations of the techniques discussed thus far. For example, the data used to predict facies probability may come from sources other than seismic. However, preferably there would be an approximate linear link between the rock physics parameters and the data.

Additionally, the approximation distribution may be other than Gaussian. For example, elliptical or skew normal distributions may be used. Using these distributions, the likelihood of the data can be directly assessed using the model. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of determining a rock facies in a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location, comprising the steps of: obtaining seismic data associated with said region; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a first rock physics probability distribution with spatial dependencies; providing a second rock physics probability distribution around the first location comprising at least one probability distribution per facies, wherein the spatial dependencies in the first rock physics probability distribution are utilized, such that the second rock physics distribution provides a simplifying approximation of the first rock physics distribution; and performing a Bayesian inversion at the first location by a computer processor using the second rock physics probability distribution to predict the probability of the rock facies at said location taking into account said seismic data, in order to indicate a presence of said facies in said region.
 2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the Bayesian inversion step provides a posterior rock physics probability distribution of the rock physics probability distribution.
 3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the step of approximating the posterior rock physics probability distribution comprises summing the approximating distributions in the window.
 4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one distribution is Skew Normal.
 5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one distribution is Elliptical.
 6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the at least one distribution is Gaussian.
 7. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer-executable instructions to perform the method as claimed in claim
 1. 8. A computer programmed to perform the method as claimed in claim
 1. 9. A method of determining a rock facies in a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location comprising the steps of: obtaining seismic data associated with said region; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a first rock physics probability distribution with spatial dependencies; providing a second rock physics probability distribution around the first location comprising at least one distribution per combination of facies in a window comprising the first location and at least one further location, whereby the second rock physics distribution provides a simplifying approximation of the first rock physics distribution; and performing a Bayesian inversion by a computer processor using the second rock physics probability distribution to predict the probability of the rock facies at said first location taking into account the seismic data, in order to indicate a presence of said facies in said region.
 10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the Bayesian inversion step predicts the probability of the facies or the facies combinations in the window.
 11. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein a likelihood term in the Bayesian inversion is evaluated directly from at least one rock physics distribution per combination of facies.
 12. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the combinations of facies exclude impossible combinations of facies.
 13. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the combinations of facies exclude physically impossible combinations of facies.
 14. The method as claimed in claim 13, where combinations of facies are excluded based on prior information.
 15. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the combinations of facies exclude combinations of facies that would not be expected to occur naturally.
 16. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the combinations of facies exclude combinations of facies that would not be expected to occur naturally.
 17. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the approximation of the rock physics probability is the same for all locations that have the same facies configuration in the window.
 18. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer-executable instructions to perform the method as claimed in claim
 9. 19. A computer programmed to perform the method as claimed in claim
 9. 20. A method of determining a rock facies in a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location, comprising the steps of: obtaining seismic data associated with said region; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a first rock physics probability distribution with spatial dependencies; obtaining a second rock physics probability distribution comprising at least one probability distribution per facies utilizing the spatial dependencies in the first rock physics probability distribution wherein the second rock physics distribution provides a simplifying approximation of the first rock physics distribution around the first location; and performing a Bayesian inversion at the first location by a computer processor using the second rock physics probability distribution to predict the probability of the rock facies at said location taking into account said seismic data, in order to indicate a presence of said facies in said region.
 21. A method of determining a rock facies in a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location comprising the steps of: obtaining seismic data associated with said region; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a first rock physics probability distribution with spatial dependencies; obtaining a second rock physics probability distribution comprising at least one distribution per combination of facies in a window comprising the first location and at least one further location, wherein the second rock physics distribution provides a simplifying approximation of the first rock physics distribution around the first location; and performing a Bayesian inversion by a computer processor using the second rock physics probability distribution to predict the probability of the rock facies at said first location taking into account the seismic data, in order to indicate a presence of said facies in said region.
 22. A method of determining a rock facies in a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location, comprising the steps of: obtaining seismic data associated with said region; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a first rock physics probability distribution with spatial dependencies; approximating the first rock physics probability distribution around the first location with at least one probability distribution per facies utilizing the spatial dependencies in the first rock physics probability distribution, to obtain a simplified, second rock physics distribution; and performing a Bayesian inversion at the first location by a computer processor using the simplified, second rock physics probability distribution to predict the probability of the rock facies at said location taking into account said seismic data, in order to indicate a presence of said facies in said region.
 23. A method of determining a rock facies in a subterranean region of the Earth at a first location comprising the steps of: obtaining seismic data associated with said region; selecting a plurality of facies; providing a first rock physics probability distribution with spatial dependencies; approximating the first rock physics probability distribution around the first location with at least one distribution per combination of facies in a window comprising the first location and at least one further location, to obtain a simplified, second rock physics distribution; and performing a Bayesian inversion by a computer processor using the simplified, second rock physics probability distribution to predict the probability of the rock facies at said first location taking into account the seismic data, in order to indicate a presence of said facies in said region. 